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Hi Peter,
First of all, thanks for the
compliment. I appreciate it.
After reading your email, I would guess by "sharper"
you mean that you want the mix of your rap beats to sound
more professional. I think I can help a little:
The first thing you must realize is that your ear will get
better and better as you continue to make more rap beats.
It might sound funny but its true. Everytime you make a beat,
make sure that you listen to it on different home systems,
boomboxes, car stereos etc. You'll notice that it will sound
different everywhere you played it. The more you listen for
these small differences, the better you'll become. You will
begin to hear these small differences that others (who don't
make rap beats) won't be able to hear. That is how you got
em! They won't understand how you got your beat to sound so
good. This all takes a lot of time though.
The first thing you can do is get some monitor speakers (if
you don't use any now) that are good for making hip hop music.
Monitors are the key to making your sound the way you want
people to hear it. I've seen a lot of people make rap beats
without monitors. Everytime their beats will sound good while
creating, but horrible on other systems. Since making rap
beats usually involves a lot bass, too much bass generally
tends to be the first mistake. By putting too much bass in
your mix, you muddy up the rest of the sound. Nothing can
breathe, you just hear that damn bass. I love bass too and
that was always my biggest problem. It took me a long time
to learn that less bass means the other sounds can be louder
and cleaner thus making overall mix sound better to the listener's
ear. You don't want any sound that will irritate the listener.
If you are getting annoyed with a sound in your own beat,
the person who listens to it, will 9 times out of 10, hate
that sound too. With monitors though, its a lot easier to
get a hold of these problems. If you already have monitors
then lets move on.
I use a lot of different equipment to make the beats on this
website. Although experience helps out a lot, the equipment
plays a big role in making the rap beats have such a warm
and professional sound. I describe all of the equipment I
use in depth in an earlier article here
OK, I use a lot of different equipment and have been making
beats for almost 10 years now. With all these years I should
be able to give the answer, right? But actually, there really
isn't any easy way to answer your question except by saying
keep doing what your doing. You will only get better with
time.
Always test your music against other music that you like.
Critique your music and realize that it can always get better,
because it will.
I hope that helped.
Later,
UnderRated |
